It's "very likely" that some of the people whose remains Morton collected were born into slavery, Woods said.
In a report released April 8, the committee shared a series of recommendations that include apologizing for collecting the remains and, whenever possible, returning them to their descendants and communities of origin as "a step towards atoning for the racist, unethical, and colonial practices which were integral to the formation of these collections."
Woods, who joined the museum's staff April 1, issued an apology on behalf of the museum.
Bombing victim's remains used in forensics class
As writer and organizer Abdul-Aliy Muhammad explained in that piece, the bones were given to former University of Pennsylvania professor Alan Mann, a forensic anthropologist and the museum's curator at the time, to help determine if they belonged to Tree Africa, who was 14 when she was killed in the bombing.